“Long-time Mac users who may have taken a wholly pastoral sojourn in the last 18 months would likely return to the technology landscape, take a quick look around and wonder just what the hell happened in 2004 and 2005,” Seb Janecek writes for Silicon.com. “Apple’s strategy has taken an entirely new direction in recent times with the company treading unknown ground, making sweeping changes to its design ethos and taking risks that a couple of years ago would have been largely unthinkable.”
The debut of the Mac mini, announcing the dropping of PowerPC for Intel-based Macs, the multi-button Mighty Mouse are cited by Janecek as unthinkable a few years ago.
“However, it’s with the iTunes Music Store and the iPod that Jobs has ushered in the single most significant culture change – a strategic shift that has altered the raison d’etre of the company irrevocably,” Janecek writes. “Apple’s evolution into a global media company has been explosive and the company is likely to continue in that vein as it evolves beyond music with the expected move into videos and movies.”
“So what role does the Mac play in Apple’s plans? Many Mac users have become frustrated as the iPod and the iTunes music business rose to the ascendancy and computers seemed to become increasingly marginalised. However, Apple is one of the few computer makers making ground in a tough market,” Janecek writes. “Crossing the divide between content and computer could be an Apple media entertainment centre. Such a device has long been rumoured and may already be here in nascent format in the shape of the Mac mini… Even a Mac user who’s never owned an iPod or downloaded a track from iTunes can appreciate the luxury afforded by the ever-growing revenues they generate which allow the computer business to move to a stronger platform… The future of the Mac may never have looked stronger.”
Full article here.
Related article:
iPod success opens door to Mac OS X on Intel – March 04, 2004
First post!
MW: Apple has always “appeared” to be on the brink of collapse to every analyst, but grows stronger yet.
Come to think of it, that was also my first post as Voyager… of course, as you all know… the American follow-up to Sputnik.
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Since Steve Jobs was diagnosed with cancer Apple has been surprising us with their once-improbable products: flash memory iPod Shuffle, el-cheapo Mac Mini, Mactel, 2-button Mighty Mouse, iPhone… What next, Newton 2.0 and OS X for PCs? Either he became more reckless in the face of mortality or he lost some control over Apple. Whatever the case may be, that reality distortion field is getting very thin these days.
Until they start building statues of Steve Jobs, there’s no telling how
strong they can become.
Icons all have thier irony…seems fair.
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CT =====]——— ALWAYS holding my horses!
I think it is all part of a much larger plan that Steve came up with during his exile and that is only now becoming apparent. That guy wants to win at whatever he does and I am sure it must have galled him to watch the ascendency of Microshaft.
Actually, Voyager, the Explorer 1 was the US’s first satellite:
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/satellite/explorer.html
iHave: I didn’t mean that Voyager was the US’s first. Perhaps I should have said it… “AN American follow-up to Sputnik”.
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He never stopped – don’t forget how much NeXT drew from Apple and influenced OS/X (probably more than much of what happened at Apple in the meantime).
Hey, people choose to live in ignorance all the time. Look no further than New Orleans today to see the collective consequences of such choices.
People spent years of frustration learning their command lines but, given an opportunity to leave all those command lines behind by using the Mac OS, far too many people chose to continue to live in ignorance. Same idea applies to the attitudinal trend related to the use of the early computer mice. It took Microsoft a decade to shift the masses out of some of their ignorance (by copying the Mac OS). After yet another ten years, Microsoft is finding it difficult to keep up with the Mac OS – while still encountering difficulties helping the ignorant catch up.
The Mac and now the iPod along with its systemic partners represent agents of change: they are weapons of anti-ignorance proportions useful in the master processes of civilization. Think of communications, boundary maintaince, and systemic linkage here, not to mention institutionalization, socialization, even social control. This matter at hand is not child play.
Apple Computer has recently been recognized as the most innovative company in the world. This is a recognition of unquestionable merit. From this vaunted position, Apple is expected to lead us all into the future. One financial analyst recently said, when questioned about what the future holds, “Whatever the future holds, Apple is in the best position to deliver it.”
First accepted by the more educated and wealthy, the Mac and now the iPod serve as feeders of the human soul. In fact, their civilizational uses go over the heads of far too many people. For example, the President of the United States recently encouraged people to live in ignorance (by suggesting the complete psychopathy of intelligent design). This President now wallows in the grossest of consequences of such ignorance. He deserves to wallow, such is his plight. He had a choice; he chose the wrong one, to live in ignorance.
The iPod is not just useful to the Mac platform; it is useful to every form of civilization on this earth. It is an anti-ignorance weapon (as long as people don’t elevate Steve Jobs into role playing God Himself).
This ain’t a funny matter but it’s worth a chuckle.